Today we begin a new series of posts, New Theses on a New Reformation. Once a week I will be posting a brief challenge to us as individuals, as families and as the church, encouraging us all to repent and believe the gospel and re-form our understanding in line with the Word of God. I pray you find it useful.
When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said “Repent,” He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.
Thus begins Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, a list of disputations first nailed to the door of the church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Thus began the Reformation. I would add to Dr. Luther’s wisdom this nugget, “When our Brother in the faith, Martin Luther, said “Reform,” he called for the entire life of believers to be one of reforming.” These two sentiments, in the end, mean the same thing.
Both repentance and Reformation involve a nuanced understanding of change. In both instances there are things we keep, and things we toss aside. No matter how much dust and ashes we heap upon ourselves in our repentance, there must remain something in us that we do not repent for. That is, we hold on to that which is good in us, while turning our back on that which is not. Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, thinking I’ve denied total depravity, note that I am instead affirming irresistible grace. We do not repent until we have been regenerated. And we not only do not but cannot repent for what the Holy Spirit has wrought in us. We repent for the death in us, and give thanks for the life in us.
By the same token, Luther sparked a Reformation, not a revolution. His goal wasn’t to raze everything that came before him and start from scratch. His goal was to recover the wisdom of the ages, to strip away the accretions that came through time, slowly choking away the very power of the gospel. His goal was to recover what we lost, not to destroy what remained.
Both are true in our own lives, in our churches, our families and ourselves. What we need is what the people of God have always needed, to repent and to reform. Neither should be pinpoints in time, but should instead be a way of life. Both are indeed the way of life. We fail to repent and to reform precisely because we love what is unlovely in us. We want to hold on to our sin, to deny its power and reality. This is the way of death.
If Jesus is indeed our Lord and Master, and if Luther is indeed our Father in the faith, we have no choice but to repent and to reform. Better still, we have no reason not to. Jesus knows our sin far better than we. Yet He loves us. Luther saw far greater weakness in the church than we see, yet he loved her. We have nothing to hide. We have nothing to lose, save that which is dragging us down. We have everything to gain- life, and life abundant. A life of repentance and reformation is not a life of sorrow and sadness, but a life of peace and joy. May we, by the grace of our Father in heaven believe our Master, and Brother Luther, as they call us to repent, and to believe.